Fauna#

Fauna: Among the Central European fauna found in Austria are 398 vertebrates (82 species of mammals, 219 species of birds, 16 species of reptiles, 21 species of amphibians and 60 species of fish), some 30,000 species of insects (7,379 species of beetles, 1,570 species of large butterflies, 136 species orthopterans, 117 species of neuropterans and many others) as well as several 1,000 miscellaneous species of invertebrates (including 2 species of scorpions, 5 species of crabs and 435 species of molluscs).

The mountainous region is inhabited by Alpine Fauna. A special feature of Austrian fauna is the Brown Bear. Some animal species common to southern Europe found in Austria are the Rode Swallow, wall lizard and the green lizard, the Aesculapian snake which can grow to more than two m in length, and the checkered water snake, carpenter bees, mountain cicadas and red admiral butterflies. Austria´s climate is also characterised by the Pannonian climate region. Amphibia, Reptiles, Fishes.

As many natural areas are increasingly cultivated and developed by man (building of roads through mountainous regions, draining of swamps, increased industrialisation, etc.) the number of Animals, Endangered Species of is rising. In recent years six species of brooding birds have disappeared: the sea eagle (some attempts to hatch young have recently been made), the gull-billed tern, the least tern, the black tern, the medrick tern, the sandpiper and the Spoonbill, after five species of birds had already stopped hatching their young in Austria in the 19th century (the glossy ibis, osprey (fish hawk, fishing eagle), little bustard, redshank and scimitar-babbler; isolated hatching attempts have been made recently by the scimitar-babbler and the glossy ibis). However, several non-native species have also made their home in Austria, such as Phylloxera (brought in from the United States in 1872), the Bisam rat (came from the north in 1911), the Turkish collared dove (since 1938 from Hungary) and the raccoon.

Literature#